Shaun White bows out of slopestyle; draws criticism from Canadian snowboarders

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U.S. snowboarding star Shaun White has pulled out of the Olympic slopestyle event following complaints that the Sochi course is too dangerous.

In a statement released Wednesday, White said he decided to forgo slopestyle and concentrate on halfpipe, where he will try for his third-straight gold medal next week.

"With the practice runs I have taken, even after course modifications and watching fellow athletes get hurt, the potential risk of injury is a bit too much for me to gamble my other Olympics goals on," White said.

White, who is among the Olympic snowboarding favourites, jammed his left wrist during a practice Tuesday. When he came off the slopestyle course, he called it "a little intimidating."

White downplayed his injury as minor. But said he has “concerns” about the course.

"It's been interesting to see how it's developed and changed over the past couple days,” White said. “The big question is if it will continue to change. Because every day, they have riders meetings and they give feedback. Sometimes there's changes, sometimes there's not."

White’s sudden decision to skip the new snowboarding event could be good news for Canadian gold-medal favourite and White’s rival in slopestyle, Mark McMorris. McMorris has described the takeoff ramps on which White suffered his injury as “kind of obnoxiously tall.”

"We were surprised for sure," McMorris's dad, Don, told CTV's Canada AM on Wednesday of White’s decision. "We heard that he had sprained a wrist the day before, but that's not necessarily what would pull you out of a slopestyle competition, I don't think."

The event has snowboarders speed down a mountain course of rails, bumps and sharply angled jumps that allow riders to flip two or three times before landing. The qualifying rounds for slopestyle begin Thursday, the day before the Opening Ceremonies.

White is not the only Olympian who has raised concerns about the course at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.

Olympic officials scrambled to make adjustments to Sochi’s slopestyle course after Norwegian snowboarder Torstein Horgmo crashed in a practice run on Monday and fractured his collarbone, forcing him out of the competition. On Tuesday, Finnish snowboarder Marika Enne suffered a concussion.

Other athletes have complained about the jumps on the course being too high.

Canadian snowboarder Sebastien Toutant told the Olympic News Service earlier this week that the course “is like jumping out of a building.”